9UNP0189SD_Isaac_Walters_WordPress

- Good afternoon and welcome to another session of History Sandwiched In. And today, we're especially fortunate, because we're having a guest that's going to talk about the fur trade, the most fascinating time in Wisconsin history, and a time that, I believe, has been under-taught or under appreciated. With so much emphasis on the settlement history of Wisconsin, the fur trade has sort of taken a back seat. I don't think it should be there. So we're going to bring it into the front seat today. Our guest here is Isaac Walters. He teaches history at Blair High School now, but more relevant is that he's been the Interpretive Ranger at Grand Portage National Monument, which is the nexus of the fur trade and the whole Great Lakes fur trade for Wisconsin and beyond. Now without further delay, let me bring to you Isaac Walters. 
(applause)

- Hello. To get started with, I kind of like to see where everyone's coming from. To teach 200 years of history, fur trade history, I don't think everyone has their calendars scheduled out through next week or the week after, so I'm going to have to condense a lot of information, even what I have here in presentation form, I think is going to go beyond what we have for time. So in order to kind of know where you guys are all coming from, obviously, everyone here is a history fan, history enthusiast. How many people in here especially are interested in the fur trade? How many people work with the fur trade in some form, perhaps at a museum? How many folks out there work with the fur trade, perhaps as a teacher? Any teachers? Fourth grade teacher? Okay. 

I'm just trying to get a feel for everyone. I'm going to be covering the fur trade in a few different forms here. I'm going to give you just kind of an outline of what I'm going to do quickly. First of all, I'm going to start with a timeline, just showing you, like I said, 200 years of history. And we're looking at three different nations having a series play at this, first the French, British and then the Americans. I'm going to give you a basic timeline of events and things, to give you a background information. I'm going to go into and talk about the fur trade itself, it's kind of framework, how it works, the why's, the how's, the who's. And I'm going to do that in a very, very general fashion, because we are covering 200 years. We are covering three different nations. I'm going to try to make it in a general enough form that it makes sense for most of them. 

Of course, there are differences and things that we probably won't be able to touch on today. And then finally, if we get to it at the end, I'm going to take a look at probably the most famous of those that were involved in the fur trade, and that's the Voyageur, and bring in the idea of the coureur de Bois. And maybe bring up some of the myths that come along with the fur trade. Also, throughout the fur trade, the why and the how, I'd like to get into some of the myths, as well. Quickly looking at this map, just to kind of give you an idea to start that timeline. We were once part of France here in Wisconsin. A lot of people forgot this, although with LaCrosse, Prairie du Chien, Trempealeau County, the many, many, many French names that we have in this state, it should be pretty obvious that we were a part of the French Colony in the United States. And this shows you a good idea of where that was. I would even argue that the blue there that is France that comes through, could arguably go out to the Rockies. Some of the people, the father and sons, got as far as the Rockies. 

And you could even say it's even further to the north and west. But again, it gives you an idea. Generally, when we think of our history in America, we think of the 13 Colonies. However, we don't think of the fact that the majority of the states in the 50 states were French first. So taking a look at this, once again, we start with France. Originally, the fur trade had it set up where the natives were supposed to be coming to Montreal to do the trade. They were bringing their furs to trade fairs in Montreal. And you didn't have a lot of folks going out to the west, out to areas like Wisconsin to do this. By the 1650s, quite a long time ago actually, and pretty early when we think of colonial history, we see that entrepreneurial young folks, people looking for some freedom, maybe to get away, as well as to make a buck from France, or New France, I should say, and Canada are heading out to the west. At this point, this isn't liked by the officials of New France. 

People didn't like this. And what they decided to do is, okay if people are going to go out there, that is a good way of doing the trade. But we need to somehow regulate this. So around 1681, that fair ends, and they try to officially make a program established licensing system for those that are headed west. At this time, we see the beginning of the licenses, which goes on and off at different times. This is going to then continue all the way through when the French lose this land, during the French and Indian War, the Seven Years War, the North American portion of that. And with the fall of Quebec and the fall of Montreal later on, you see people that are British coming out of Montreal as early as 1760 or 1761. At the same time that France is trading, however, the British were also trading. The main British push for trade is out of the Hudson's Bay. And that was actually started by two Frenchmen who didn't get their way with France, where they were actually labeled as illegals for having headed off into the west, and displeased go to the English, get a charter from the King and begin Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. 

The interesting thing about the Hudson's Bay Company, they did basically what the English did, the British did, and in Africa, in India, everywhere else that they went. And that's go to the coastline, set up a big factory, or a big fort, and then expect the locals, the natives, to come to them to trade. And not really going inland so much. Whereas the French took the rivers, took the lakes, took canoes and headed far inland, right to the native's doors to do, what we could argue, was better salesmanship. This is a quick map. This is a very cool map that was done by the Wisconsin Cartographers Guild. It's in a great book that I'm sure that they have out there called "Wisconsin Past and Present, a Historical Atlas." This shows that French era, a little bit, up until it goes until 1763, which is the treaty of Paris, which officially ends, this as French territory. But like I said, the British were coming in already a couple of years prior to that. And you can see Wisconsin, and how many posts, military and otherwise were here during that French regime. 

People forget about the fact that we were really, really a French colony here. Anyway, by the 1760s, the British take over. And you have the Hudson's Bay Company, still working out of the Hudson's Bay. But now what we're going to have is a number of small merchants, people who are looking for a way to make some money, in Montreal. Some of them, French Canadians. However, a good number of them being Scotsmen, as well as Englishmen. They're going to start purchasing goods in Montreal. And headed, like the French did earlier, up river. By the 1770s, these merchants start to consolidate and become bigger and bigger. What the Hudson's Bay Company men referred to these guys, as pesky peddlers. 

You know, Montreal peddlers, really, who cares. They're not bringing on a lot of business. Started to become pretty big guys, and actually interfered with the trade of the Hudson's Bay Company. By 1774, the Hudson's Bay Company is moving inland. And 1774, with Cumberland House is their first real push into the interior to compete with these guys, because they realize that the natives are not going to come to us, if they're being stopped part way, or even if their being satisfied within their actual villages. Why would I want to go an hour, two or three hours, or two or three days, to buy something when they'll deliver right to my door. The North West Company, one of the biggest, biggest companies that really formed out of these Montreal merchants, officially started in 1783. But earlier, in 1779 a nucleus of shares forms into what will become the North West Company. Interestingly, these pesky Montreal merchants, these peddlers that are of little importance, by the 1790s are going to be outgaming the Hudson's Bay Company. And actually in the 1790s, in 1793-'96 when they were doing some of their best business, they were bringing in five to six times the number of beavers, to say nothing of the other furs that the Hudson's Bay Company was bringing in. 

Some other things that are important to us here in Wisconsin, just bring up, kind of get our idea on the background here, is that we have border issues. A lot of the British fur trade happening in Wisconsin is actually happening at a time when we were technically American. You could say that 1776, on to especially in 1783, with the Treaty of Paris, this is technically America. Although it's America, we have British things happening, British forts here. We have a lot going on. In the 1790s, we start to see issues after a treaty, oh, yeah, that is American, but the British don't leave. For the North West Company, it becomes a big issue in 1803, because at that point, they finally leave the tip of Minnesota, right before you hit the Canadian border, that today is Grand Portage in the tip there. That was American territory. And that's where their main depot was. They end up moving it up the river, to what will later be called Fort William. 

So they move in 1803. But of course, Wisconsin still isn't America at this point. We have British fur posts happening here. We have British forts in Green Bay, Fort Edward Augustus. You have a British fort in Prairie du Chien. And then there's an actual battle during the War of 1812 in Prairie du Chien. And officially we become American in 1816. Additionally, just to note, the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, these two really big rivals in the fur trade, do eventually merge together in 1821. And I'm leaving out a lot of stuff here. But as I said, this is kind of the basics of the fur trade. 

Quickly showing this map, from that same text I explained earlier, you're looking at this the British era here. And notice that all those many, many forts and military positions that the French had, are now down to one, with Fort Edward Augustus at Green Bay, during the British period. And you could argue that also later beyond the dates that they give here, because Wisconsin doesn't of course, become American, truly, in 1775 even in 1783, that in Prairie du Chien, as well, there's a fort, but kind of showing you that. There's also going to be many, many fur posts, which I'll show you on a map later on. Anyway, the fur trade itself. What is this fur trade all about? Why is there a fur trade? Why am I even talking about this? This is an important thing. What was the beaver for? 

A lot of these furs are used for the fashion industry, especially beaver being for fashionable hats. I've been got an image there that shows various forms of beaver hats through the time period. You have early on, starting even at the end of the Renaissance, large, large, broad brimmed beaver fur felt hats. If you look at the hat on the barrel there, a later forms, but beaver fur felt. When people talk about the beaver hat, a lot of times you think about beaver fur, like a fur hat, like right on the animal fur. That's not the case, what they're taking is actually the underfur of the hide. If you look at a beaver hide, there's two types of fur, a guard hair, a course hair that you see down over here, and then this middle underneath hair, which is what keeps the animal warm in the wintertime. That's actually being shaved off and felted, like you would felt wool today. Wool, of course, is being felted at that time period as well. And you're making this fine, fashionable hats. 

This fashion continues on all the way well into the 19th century, mid-19th century, in various forms of hats. You see during the 18th century that cocked hat, or the tri-corner as we call it today. And then eventual evolving into the top hat. Basically, what's happening is that we have a huge supply of beaver here. We have a lot of furs, Europe's supply of beavers has dwindled, dwindled, dwindled. And here in North America we have a lot of them. This is a good way of making money. Basically, the reason why people first came to Wisconsin, if you want to say anything, I shouldn't say people, but European people. One of the main first reasons they came is fashion. This is the fashion industry. 

As far as we are from Paris or London or the centers of fashion, here we are in Wisconsin, important in high fashion. The basic system here, to put it very, very simply, is that the natives hunt for furs, not so much trapping, and I'll get into that in a little bit. But they're going to hunt for the furs, gather up the furs and then bring them to European folks who are then going to give them European, and really things from all over the world. This is a truly global enterprise as I'm going to show in a little bit. Bring these things, exchange them, and then ship them back to their own places. What this is, is their trade. I should note that when we talk about the French trappers. There really aren't any French trappers at this point. The Voyageur that we talk about is a transportation man. He's a grunt laborer. 

He moves the stuff. He doesn't trap, as we're going to see early on here. The Rocky Mountain fur trade from 1820-1840, that short two decades, you see European folks, Anglo Americans going out and trapping the furs themselves. That wasn't really happening in the Great Lakes fur trade. And the Great Lakes fur trade that had happened 200 years, in one year brought in about as much as the 20 years of the Rocky Mountain fur trade, as far as beaver furs go. So really, what we're looking at here is natives gathering the furs, Europeans bringing in trade goods to get those furs from them. Kind of looking at the system. These goods are going to be gathered literally all over the world. If we look at our table here, on the side towards me, we have lots of different goods here, literally this is a global market. We're bringing in North American furs in exchange for wools from England. 

Some of the British, other textiles like linen, were coming in from Irish linen. We have textiles, especially like ribbons and silks coming in from China, you have these ostrich plumes there for decoration that are coming in from Northern Africa. You have iron goods, muskets, brass goods coming in from many places depending on the time period and where you're looking, from all over Europe. Glass beads, a lot of them coming from Venice, Italy. You see Vermillion, an oxide, that Cinnabar that was used for paint, or a lot of that was coming from the Orient, China and other places. You have things literally from all over the world, all of the continents, with the exception of Antarctica, which you could argue there isn't a lot of resource there. And Australia, which as this point is almost undiscovered, for most of the fur trade. All these other continents are involved in this, so as early as the 1600s in Wisconsin, we have a global enterprise going on with the fur trade. So these things are being gathered up in London. They're being shipped then across the Atlantic to Montreal, across the Atlantic, up the St. 

Lawrence. Here they're being brought into Montreal. And in Montreal, we're going to have a number of folks who are basically merchants, who are going to be financing this trade, buying up these goods to be sent out into the Indian trade. I've got a variety of folks here showing these different periods. The guy on the far left is from the French period. He's one of the many Montreal merchants that's fairly well-known. That's Ignacio. We have, on the bottom far left, John Jacob Astor, American Fur Company. And then the other four gentlemen are gentlemen that were involved in the North West Company. Simon on the upper left, one of the big men in the North West Company. 

To his right, Sir Alexander, the first European folk to go all the way across North America, 11 years before Louis and Clark. He went all the way across North America, and he was a partner in the North West Company. He eventually breaks off and forms his own company, the XY Company. He joins a company that's a rival company, I shouldn't say his own company, at that point. But then he comes back. And then the other two gentlemen on the bottom, Frobisher and Isaac Todd. These guys are bringing in these goods. And then from Montreal, they're going to ship them. I don't know if you can see here, I might make some feedback. They're shipping up the Ottawa River from Montreal, up river, across a lake, to the French River, down to the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, around, up across Superior. 

And then from here, you've got Mackinaw right here at the Straits. You've got Grand Portage, or Fort William, depending on the time period, all of up to go into the northwest. Coming into Wisconsin, you can come in many, many different ways, from the north, from Lake Superior or from Lake Michigan, from Green Bay. You have lots of different ways to enter into the southern part of the Great Lakes. But these are the places that they're sending these furs where they will be going to many, many posts. Here's a great map, also, out of that same book that I mentioned, showing different fur posts that were in Wisconsin at various periods during the fur trade. Here it has from the 1630s to the 1840s. And if you look at them, along the major river ways, the Fox and the Wisconsin, the Brule, the Yellow River, the Mississippi. Posts everywhere. This was a prime location for the fur trade. 

There were a lot of things coming out of here. Not just beaver furs, but beaver, of course, being the most important to those from Europe. Anyway, they're going to get to these posts where they're going to see traders. A shameless picture of myself. We're basically at these posts in the interior, most of these posts being established next to, or at least a convenient distance, if not actually within, native villages. And here you're going to have that exchange of furs from those native folks to these traders. Some of these traders, these folks are the actual Montreal merchants themselves that came. At times, especially as it becomes more of a big industry, with the North West Company, and that, a lot of the traders become hired just to be traders. They're clerks and traders. Kind of within the echelons of the business, if you want to call it, as the fur trade really becomes a complex business. 

From here we have those trade goods then going to the natives. And I want to make a couple mentions about trade goods. First of all, I already mentioned, they come from all over the world. This is a global industry. We have goods being gathered up, and truly the finest goods. These are quality goods. A lot of times, people think of the fur trade, they think of bangles and beads, trinkets, and we are trying to screw over the Indians so that we can get their furs that are worth so much more. That wasn't always the case. And there are tons of records that talk about how shrewd the natives were coming in, where they would scratch or burn the nap off of the blanket to see the weave, to check the weave. Where they were complaining that this year, this isn't good enough. 

We need this instead, or that's not good enough, we need this instead. Ingenious ways of checking the quality, and when the quality wasn't there, they didn't like it. And at times when the trade was more competitive, we definitely saw quality goods being brought in. One of the places that I didn't mention, South America, Brazilian tobacco. We had tons of tobacco being grown in north America, tons of tobacco in the Virginias. However, even as early as the French trade, and all the way through the fur trade, tobacco coming of Brazil for example, was some of the best tobacco. And the French they called it Tobacco Noir, Black Tobacco. It was the higher quality tobacco that they wanted. They wanted it, we're bringing it in so we can get their goods. A cool quote comes out of Juliet Kinsey's memoirs in 1830, when she comes in. 

And I have to mention this. I'm going to read this. Kinsey talks about this idea of the fur trade and the quality goods, and then Monsieur Roulette, One of the Roulettes, Joseph Roulette, down in Prairie du Chien, a quote that came from him them. She goes, "Indians are good at a bargain. They are not easily overreached. On the contrary, they understand at once when a charge is exorbitant. And a trader who tries his shrewdness upon him is sure to receive an expressive -- which clings to him. Upon one occasion, a lady remarked to him..." Mr. Roulette. 

"'Oh, I would not be engaged in the Indian trade. It seems to me a system of cheating the poor Indians.' 'Let me tell you, Madame, replied he, with great naivety, it is not so easy a thing to cheat the Indians as you imagine. I have tried these 20 years and have not yet succeeded.'" Once again, this is quality, quality goods. I'm going to shoot out to you guys for a second. Of all the things coming in here, you see a lot of trade goods at this end. What do you think is the big trade good that's coming in? What's the number one? Anyone? 

- Muskets? 

- Muskets, no. 

Knives? No. Beads? No. Blankets. Yeah, basically had a we have is 70% or more of the goods are textiles or clothing, textile related, blankets, things like that. A huge amount when you think about it. When we think of the fur trade, everyone wants to talk about alcohol, or guns, or brass kettles. Those are all very, very important things. Iron hardware, but number one is textiles. 

I'm going to show you this chart here. This was information compiled by Dean Anderson, in the flow of the European trade goods into the western Great Lakes region. He got his information from the Montreal Merchant Records, which were compiled at the Minnesota Historical Society, and translated and transcribed, some of them. And from 1715-1716, the French period, coming into Green Bay, here in Wisconsin, he broke down the goods coming in. And you see that clothing is 65%, just over 65% of the goods. And probably some of these other things could work their way into clothing or textiles. Hunting is 18%. And everything after that is single digits, or less than 1%. Interestingly, hunting and weapons are separated. I don't know what he's considering what, if a musket is which. 

Also, you have to keep in mind when you look at these things, what are durable goods, versus non-durable foods. Your textiles are going to wear out quicker than perhaps your ironware. However, I think it's very interesting to note that clothing and textiles is so high. Okay, let's get a look back at this system a little bit. We've got these goods now. We've talked about these goods. They're here at these posts. What about the furs? How are they coming in? I said that the natives, the American Indians, are bringing them in. 

But how do they get them? They're going to be gathering furs. But I also want to quickly mention that they're gathering and bringing in more than just furs. That the natives are supplying the fur trade with a lot of the things they need. Not just fur, but if you look at the end there, I've got a birch bark basket full of wild rice. They were bringing in a lot of the food that was needed out here. Corn, wild rice, meats, fish, things to keep these guys in the interior going. They were making the snowshoes. There's a pair of snowshoes there for these guys to get around in the winter. The birch bark canoes. 

The canoe that was transporting all of this stuff. Early on, the French Canadians figured out this technology and started making them themselves. They were still getting them, a lot of times, from the native. It's native technology to start with, and even when they were in the interior, even if they had a European or a French Canadian made canoe, they're probably going to be trading for more bark to do repairs, the spruce root that puts it together, gum or the pitch that they use to seal it up. These are things that they're gathering and bringing in here. Women themselves had such a huge role in this. When we think of the fur trade, we don't think of the women, and especially the native women. And that could be a whole other Sandwiched In talk, but the native women were supplying a lot. Not only in goods, but they were the cultural brokers often times between the groups, as they married in, as they were the translators, as their offspring, this new Metis group that's coming out of this, becomes and in between for, really, the first settlers of Wisconsin as well. These Metis that come out of this union. 

Some more pictures, just some of the natives and like these. These are from Thomas Peachy. Once again, native families coming and bringing these goods in. And I mentioned hunting, hunting for furs, not trapping. There's a lot of quotes that talk about traps not being very common in this area. And if you think about it, think of what it would take to blacksmith and create a trap, versus something like -- I'm going to attempt to come here without feedback. Something like these two goods here. This is a muskrat spear and chisel. Very cheap, very easy to make, compared to a trap, great. Not only that, but a trap is very heavy to transport these compared to a trap. 

I'm going to take these. Plus, this is native way of hunting prior to the idea of the trap anyway. If I'm going after a beaver or a muskrat, what do I do? I get my buddies up, we go in the wintertime when the furs are the best. We figure out where the animals are, where they're running. I might set of my buddies on the runs where they'll naturally go if they leave their hut. And then a couple of us are going to take axes, ice chisels. We're going to break up the huts. And then the animal's forced to either fight or flee. If it tries to fight, well a little muskrat or a beaver versus me with a spear, this would actually be attached to a handle, same with the ice chisel, axes, chisels, guns or whatever. 

We would quickly dispatch that beaver. Those that try to flee are probably going to flee taking those routes they always take, those runs that they always take. And my buddy is sitting there with their spears, and are going to harvest them. A trap can catch how many beaver? One. If you're really good, maybe more than that. I haven't done a lot of trapping for fur game, but I remember catching three mice in a trap one time when I was a kid. I was pretty good. Yeah, versus this, where you're going to take a whole colony. You could take a large number of beaver at one time, or a large number of muskrats, a lot of these animals you are hunting. 

These are some great pictures from the early 1800s. The top one is Seth Eastman and then the bottom one is a Rindisbacher, showing natives in Canada and the Wisconsin area, this basic area, you could say, hunting for muskrats and beavers. You can see them breaking through the lodges. They have the spears and all of that. I'll show you a couple other images. This is actually from 1730. This is from an unknown artist. This is held in a collection in Yale. And there's a whole series here. This particular one shows that hunting for beavers. 

You see them chopping through the ice, breaking through the lodge. Some have bows, some have spears. And they're shooting and killing the beaver. Here's a James Isham. He's a Hudson Bay Company man in the 1740s. Showing his diagram and his wonderful artistry. He wasn't an art major by any means. He was a Hudson's Bay Company man, showing the idea of how they broke into the lodges, the beavers leaving. In this case, they have actually nets set in the river, or in the creek, to catch them as they come by. And some of them have guns. 

Some of them have other forms of dispatching the beaver. A lot of paintings showing that kind of idea. Okay, so here we've got, at the posts then, all this stuff built up. We brought in trade goods. I didn't mention how they got there much, other than I did mention canoes, and now those goods have to come back. Who's doing it? That's the Voyageur. And it's at this point that that famous mythological being, the Voyageur, that we think of in the fur trade. I shouldn't say mythological, but they are overly romanticized many times. These guys come in. 

These guys are nothing more than truckers and grunt laborers. They are transporting the goods. They're paddling canoes. They're hauling these things over open areas and bringing stuff in. Showing this map again, when we have things coming in from the Far East, from Montreal, generally they're going to be loaded up what were called Montreal Canoes, or Master Canoes. This drawing is from the Canoe Museum in Petersburg, Ontario, kind of shows that idea. You're talking a 30-36-foot canoe that can carry a capacity of like 3 or 3-1/2 tons. This is the semi here. And it's bringing all the goods from Montreal into generally a depot, of some sort. Whether it be Michigan, Mackinaw, Grand Portage, wherever. 

It's bringing these in, where it's then going to be at this depot, split up and then sent out generally in north canoes, canoes du nord, which are smaller, 24-27-foot canoes. Kind of delivery trucks, if you will. Where from the big WalMart depot center, they're going to be unloading them on the trucks and sending them out to the individual WalMarts. These little individual tiny posts all over the interior. The North West Company, I believe at one point had like 104 of these, or more, just like all throughout the interior. Some of them going all the way well into the northwest, up into the Arctic. Some all the way out to the west. Using these rivers, they were able to transport these goods to the native, get the furs and transport them back to Montreal, where could be loaded on big ships and sent across to Europe. Ingenious. The rivers, the lakes, Wisconsin, you talk about paddling canoes. 

You don't think about the fact that really, we can travel anywhere we want. We can get to any major water boundary around America. We can go to the Atlantic. We can go to the Pacific. We can go to the Arctic. We can go to the Gulf of Mexico, using this system of rivers and lakes. And really, never have to do a portage much longer than 12 miles to get to any of these. Grand Portage, it's about a nine and a half mile portage. It's not the biggest. When they say Grand Portage, it's not grand in the size, so much as it is just because of the location. 

From that point, you can hit those places. Having to not take a portage more than 12 miles. There are bigger portages out there, to get to some of the places, a 27-mile portage. But some of the portages, to get to anywhere you need to go are relatively short. Twelve miles is a lot over land, but when you think of Louis and Clark versus Alexander Mackenzie, I'll stick to the water. I'll canoe, myself. It's a little bit easier. And that kind of brings it up to the terminology used with Voyageurs. And I'm going to kind of open it up to questions, and kind of let you guys gather and send me where you want me to go with information. But we see different terms used. 

Voyageurs is the concept we use, that we hear when we talk about these guys. Basically, these are wage laborers contracted to transport goods. Sometimes and often, they traded themselves, when you use the strict term of Voyageur that was used when it originated in New France. You hear the term Engage and Coureur de Bois, as well. Coureur de Bois came out of that illegal fur trade that started after it was made legal in 1681, and it was licensed. Basically, you either have a license or you don't. If your licensed, you're a merchant. A trader or a merchant, or you're a Voyageur. If you're not licensed, you're illegal and you're called a coureur de bois. Part of that, a lot of people were called coureur de bois if you're headed inland, because they didn't want you to. 

That has a very negative context. When you say coureur de bois, a lot of times we have this, oh, yeah, they're the ones that are living with the natives, and doing this and doing that. And they're these romantic frontiersmen. Most Voyageurs and coureur de bois, you could never tell the difference between them, other than did they have the paperwork behind them to make them legal or not. And some of them that were legal one year, might not be legal the next. And then maybe those illegal ones, we're going to grant them amnesty, because we've got something going on that we need them for, and that happened throughout New France a lot. Engage is a different term altogether. And we see that being used with the fur trade a lot, as well. These are laborers contracted solely to transport goods, to haul goods, to do grunt labor. An engage is literally a contracted man. 

In New France, we actually used the term engage to mean any kind of indentured servant. And a governor describes an engage as basically a man obliged to go wherever and do whatever his master commanded, like a save during the time of his indentureship. It's a quote from the governor. Basically, these are contracted laborers. By the time of the big fur, British fur trade, most guys that we're referring to as Voyageurs are actually engage. During the French fur trade, you have the Voyageurs, who are contracted men, but they also have a vested interest. Normally, they're actually investing money, goods into it. They're doing some trading themselves with the merchants. Slowly through the 18th century, we see more and more engages being used. By the British fur trade, we're seeing almost strictly engage by the 1780s and '90s and into the 1800s. 

However, they continued to use the word Voyageur instead. This gets to be confusing, especially when officials in New France are calling legal guys Coureur de Bois, just because they're being annoyed by them, when you're using Voyageur to explain engage, this gets to be very, very muddy. And it leads to a lot of really bad ideas of who these guys are. This is a very famous picture. Frederick Remington is always a good one. I didn't get a picture of it up here, but this is Arthur Hemming. And it shows a coureur de bois, basically a Voyageur. And I don't like this at all. Not only does it not look like what they were historically, but it's just myth. A big beard, all these buck skins. 

This is not the case. I only know of one image of an actual coureur de bois from the French period. It's a picture from the Rare Books collection, that picture I showed from the 1730s, of the guys hunting beaver. This picture comes from that, as well. This picture was entitled the "Clothing of the Coureur de Bois Of Canada." These are coureur de bois. Do they look anything like this guy? No, they're clean shaven. Clean shaven is the fashion of the time period. People didn't wear beards. 

What are they wearing for clothing? They're wearing European clothing, or at least textiles. You can notice that the guys on the far right have their bare legs, for getting in and out of the canoes. The guy on the far left, has your native style leggings or -- as the French called them, and probably a loin cloth with moccasins, which is what those other guys probably would be wearing if they weren't ready to jump in and out of the canoe, naked from the waist down. They're wearing European shirts. And then over them, a jacket. Not a blanket kind of garment that we see among re-enactors today, but rather actually a fitted garment that was based off of sailors' overcoats, originally with hoods. The two guys on the far right have a French Canadian cap. It's actually a simple cap, a stocking cap being worn. This is what the coureur de bois would have looked like. 

Actually, this is also what the Voyageur would have looked like during the French period. And this slowly changes over time, as they stop wearing loin clothes and leggings, and start wearing trousers more. You start to see other things, mainly, it's following the fashion of the time, as well as changing with it. I'm going to open this up to questions. I can also flip through and show you more pictures of Voyageurs. Yeah? 
(inaudible)

- Great question, and actually, maybe I can go back to the map. We're going to have seasonal and full-time employment with the fur trade. 

Those guys that are transporting goods from Montreal inland to those major depots, and then bringing and grabbing the furs and bringing them back, that route back there, called Montreal men. Sometimes they were called things like Pork Eaters, because they were eating mainly salted pork from the way. It was kind of a derogatory term used by the guys that are spending all winter long in there and doing more work, saying hey, you guys are lowly. That's coming out of the British trade more. But what we see more, is those guys are seasonal. And, a lot of them are basically farmers from around Montreal. A lot of them are married, have their wives back in New France, and then later on, in British Montreal. The women are doing a lot of the farm work while they're gone. And this is kind of a way of making some extra money, and actually probably making more money than their farms are actually going to make, and then coming back home. Seasonal labor for just the summer. 

There are guys however, that are going to end up being hired on to stay at those interior posts, to bring the furs from the winter down, drop them off, pick up the new trade goods and then go back. Those guys called winterers, north men, whatever you want to call them. Those guys are more full-time, all year-round. Many of them are marrying into local native families. Some of them when their contracts go, are going to head back to Montreal eventually. Some of them, when their contracts are done and they married local people, they may stay local and become what are called free men and set up settlements along there. In some rare occasions, some of those guys actually start hunting and trapping for the furs, and that's kind of my, well, I guess there were some European folks that did that, not just natives. But they're the rare, rare exception. Yeah, in the black hat? 

- Do you know if fur traders, John Jacob Astor, ever arrived in Prairie du Chien? 

- The later fur trade is something that I'm just getting more into. I've always done the French regime more. I don't know that Astor ever was in Prairie du Chien. I know he had a post there. Rich, do you know was Astor ever in Prairie du Chien? I don't believe so. Like a lot of the guys that are big merchants in the companies, I would imagine the same is with Astor, especially later on as they get more affluent. They really don't go and do the grunt labor work, the hard pounding. It's like any major company. What you see with the fur trade and business is much what you see with modern. 

You could make a great story out of the connections to modern day business, and the fact that the CEOs aren't the guys that are out pounding the pavement doing the work in the major companies today. The Frobishers and others, Frobishers maybe not so much, but others never came further west than Grand Portage. And even then, he skipped going to Grand Portage a lot of years for the annual meeting, just because, I'm making a lot of money. I'm here in Montreal where I'm comfortable. Who needs to go out there? He had other people doing the grunt work. This is 1754, and the guy on the right is a good example of a Voyageur. Here's a picture showing Voyageurs. This is now much later in the 1800s. Hopkins is actually passed. 

We all commonly know Frances Hopkins, her paintings actually happened in the 1860s or 1870s, long after the fur trade actually finished. There were still people transporting goods like this, and she was traveling with them. But the real true fur trade that we see, you know a lot of people that do re-enactments and use this as their basis, you're looking at a time period afterwards. This would be like looking at what people are wearing in the 1990s to reenact the 1960s, and I don't think that's going to happen. More Hopkins. I'll take more questions or thoughts, over here now. 
(inaudible)

- We still have beaver today. That's a tough question. 

What we'll find is that-- Those are modern pictures. Back to that map. What we see is as, you know, you have the fur trade going on. Slowly, beaver are becoming less and less. They're becoming extirpated. Locally extinct from areas, and they're having to go further and further out. Grand Portage, Mecca of the fur trade as it was, in the 1790s, when it was at the biggest with the North West Company, Grand Portage wasn't bringing in any beaver there. They had no beaver there. They were bringing in wild rice and maple sugar, and all those other things that I mentioned that natives brought in. Canoes, gum, but they weren't bringing in beaver. 

They had to go further and further out to get that. Were they completely ever wiped out? Well, we can say that here in Wisconsin, I don't know if you travel anywhere where you can see a local stream, creek, river, whatever you want to call it, you're going to find probably beaver dams, beaver huts, muskrat huts. The main fur trade here in the late 18th century, or the early 19th century, up to 1840 when the fur trade officially ends, Wisconsin is more for muskrats and deer, than it is beaver. But it is bringing in things that are important to the fur trade nonetheless. 

- Were all of the cities involved in this years ago in Wisconsin? 

- In Wisconsin, your main areas that, as far as cities are, throughout that 200 years, more or less, you're going to say Green Bay, which was called Le Bay by the French, or Le Bay Pointe, by the Winnebagos. Up on Lake Superior, both La Pointe, and the Chequamegon area, they had various places there where there were major, major posts. And I'm only hitting the major ones here. There are lots of posts, as I showed in that map. 

Portage, Wisconsin becomes a very important point. Not that there's a lot happening there as far as trade and posts and forts, but it had a major portage between the Box and the Wisconsin River that cut the state in half. British, at various points, had many majorly important stuff happening, as well as up the Mississippi, Trempealeau, Wisconsin, had a number of French forts during the French regime. Lake Pepin, during the French regime, had as many as seven different forts at different times on either the Wisconsin or the Minnesota side, or together, I should say. All throughout the area, we see things. But the major, major places that eventually become even cities, because people start to settle in, are like Prairie du Chien, Portage and Green Bay. Because the offspring of these traders. And as you see this Metis group, and more people come in, you get this Creole settlement of Indians of Metis and of French Canadians and eventually, British folks, as well. That really become our first settlement, our first places in Wisconsin, 1780s already in Prairie du Chien, 1760s there are people in what you could call a settlement in Green Bay, and then building up, building up, building up, building up from there. Far back with the beard, and then we're going to come up to the green shirt. 

- This is complicated. But this is always talked about as if it was a well-organized system that just runs smoothly. It would seem as if the Voyageur is really equivalent to the trucker, that there might have been some that absconded with their useful and valuable stuff. How did that get prevented? 

- Well, it isn't smooth running to start with. There's a lot of questions, and a lot of things that could be commented on that whole question there. It isn't smooth running, and especially early on when it's less organized and there are a lot more merchants. As things become more and more organized, as you see the developments of the big companies, Hudson's Bay, North West Company, maybe a few smaller off shoots. XY Company, at times. You're going to see guys jumping ship. 

You are going to see guys that switch. The Hudson's Bay Company in the 1770s, when they were trying to start to compete, they actually put out bounties, or not bounties I should say, bonuses to try to get guys to come over from the Montreal companies. And they were paying I think a bonus of 100 pounds a year to traders that were French traders to come over and to work for them, because they knew the business already, and they knew the system. So guys did jump ship. How did you prevent that? I think being once things got big, it was preventable in the fact if you wanted to go back to Montreal, they're going to grab you. If you want to go back anywhere, and most Voyageurs do, the idea of wanting to settle into the wilderness and with the natives, that was the minority. So most people are going to want to go back. And they're going to be probably held accountable once they get back. If they want to continue to trade in the interior, if you want to be connected to that, buying the goods and connected to the major tribes that you're going to compete with, you have to be competitive at a bigger level. 

You have to be dealing with these bigger men, whether native or European. And you're going to come in contact with them. Oh, yeah, we remember you, you're the one that absconded with our stuff, and grab you, and sometimes they got very, nasty. Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company almost became policing agents of their own. When you talk about the police force, early police and law of Canada, and these areas up here, a lot of this we consider Canadian history for some reason, although a lot of this is Wisconsin and US history as well. But when you talk about Canadian history and early Canada, the law was basically the Hudson's Bay Company or the North West Company, depending on where you were and what time period. After 1821 when they amalgamate, it's the Hudson's Bay Company and they are the law. They're running everything. They at times, even had soldiers of sorts. So it didn't run smoothly, even when it became big companies that should have run smoother, still not smooth. 

You always have your glitches. You always have your issues. Yes? 

- I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the effect on the Native Americans, of the beaver being extirpated, and then having to go farther and farther. Did they go farther and farther? I mean, they were moving into areas that were occupied by others, weren't they? Were there disputes between the tribes? 

- There are disputes between the tribes. There are disputes before the fur trade gets big dealing with resources. The first major disputes probably with resources were prior to the fur trade becoming big here, when actually during the Iroquois Wars you could call them, 17th century, are happening west. 

And we actually had Huron and Indians from New York, and others following and picking up along the way, being pushed all the way into Wisconsin. Wisconsin became a huge refugee settlement for a lot of groups in the 17th century. And as they were coming in, others were being bounced around. It was like a big pool game with things scattering and bouncing and conflicts occurring, and some Indians had a whole war with the French, of sorts, because of issues with this. But I don't know if the fur trade itself was a major. What we're going to see with most of these groups, as, to get back to the original question, as the beaver is extirpated, and as the beaver is coming from further out, they turn to other resources, to other forms of economy. Grand Portage, primary example. When the fur trade, the beaver weren't there. They turned to wild rice, they turned to sugar, maple sugar. They turned to other forms of things that they could bring to these companies and make money. 

When the North West company leaves Grand Portage in 1803-1804, up to Thunder Bay area to Fort William, some of those guys keep on going up there to trade those things. But some of them started to form over things. The American Fur Company actually established a business in Grand Portage after the North West Company left. But not in furs, in commercial fishing. They actually had an agreement that, oh, we won't do furs, but they had a whole commercial fishing industry. And the Ojibwa people from Grand Portage continued getting what they needed, but with different economies. A lot of them are traditional economies, too. Fishing, wild ricing, gathering maple sugar, beaver hunting. They were doing what they had always done in various forms, but just now making it a commercial effort to continue what they are doing. It isn't really until after the fur trade ends, after this ends, after reservation and treaty issues come in with annuities, that all of this starts to really get muddled into a weird, weird situation, where it's economically not so hot. 

- Do you want to comment on the Rendezvous aspect of the fur trade? 

- Okay, Rendezvous themselves are an interesting thing, because we see two forms of rendezvous happening. There's the Rendezvous that develops during the Rocky Mountain fur trade as a means of supplying folks out in the Rockies, but also we have that term being used for things like at Grand Portage or at Mackinaw, where it becomes that depot where the people from the interior come down with the furs, the people from Montreal come with the trade goods, and they meet. And at that time where they meet and trade goods, a lot of times the businessmen from those areas, the clerks and the traders, and the partners and the merchants, will come together and meet. And it's at that time of the year where there's that meeting, the business meetings, the exchanging of the goods. While the Voyageurs are at those spots, often times they have a chance then to relax, or at least the northmen, the ones that are wintering, have a chance to relax before they have to go back. And even in the winter, they're going to be doing work out at the posts, at least a little bit. The Montrealers, those Pork Eaters, as I called them, actually, when they got to Grand Portage at the Rendezvous, as it was called, that meeting place, they normally had work to do. They had work that was contracted of them once they got there. So it wasn't as free, open fun party of a time for them always, but they were required to do some work. 

But those gathering points were called rendezvous, and that's what the rendezvous, and when you see people who have rendezvous around. Prairie du Chien has a big one. That's what those are based upon, is those gathering times when people would bring in goods. Without ruffling a lot of feathers and saying too much, a lot of those rendezvous today are showing a much more expanded view of history of what was going on. Some of them have become more carnivally and less history. Others are much more history. There's a lot going on within the politics of those kinds of things as well. I don't even want to go-- 

- You talked about trade goods. How many beavers or muskrat skins was it for a Hudson's Bay blanket or a gun? 

- That depends greatly upon the time period and where you're talking. For example, what you're buying in Montreal, the further west you go, the further you're transporting it, the higher the prices go. And you can see that actually in trade ledgers within the same company within the same year, so that's going to differ. You bring up the idea of the Hudson's Bay blanket. I want to quickly mention the Hudson's Bay blanket is only known as the Hudson's Bay blanket because the Hudson's Bay company is the only one that continues on. The North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, and a lot of these merchants, were getting the same blankets from the same mills in Oxfordshire, England, as what each other were getting. And they would have called them whatever they wanted. Probably just a blanket. The point marks on it, that's an idea that came out of the French to point them. And originally the idea supposedly was they were a label for the price. 

Well, of course, prices change as you go, and you don't want a permanent mark on it that says oh, yeah, that's only $19? Yeah, that's actually $30, sorry. So that idea actually, those ended up becoming a standard for measurements for size, for weight, for things like that, quality versus measurement of cost. It is very, very flexible. And, of course, as individual markets and supply and demand goes, maybe one year your brass is going to be more because of what's happening with brass and iron. That's my easy cop-out to not give you an actual price. Does that work? Another myth with that, quickly before I move on to the question right here. A lot of people talk about taking the gun and stacking up the beaver and that would be the cost and that's why they had longer barrels. That's a myth, by the way. 

There may be some truth of it. It may have happened once or twice, and that's where it comes from. But the vast majority of times, a couple of beaver skins would get you a musket. And, of course, different muskets were worth different amounts depending on the quality and the type of the musket besides. There was a question right here, yes. 

- Why didn't the Native Americans make their own blankets instead of getting them from the Hudson's Bay Company? 

- Good question. They were making their own blankets prior to contact even. The word for blanket in Ojibwa literally means rabbit furs. If you go up to second floor, is it on second floor, Paul, you'll see an actual woven rabbit hide blanket, where they'll take strips of the rabbit hide. 

As they dry, they curl up and weave them into blankets. Very warm and very wonderful blankets. To make a blanket like this, you'd need sheep. You'd need to be into agriculture at a level where you have animal husbandry. That wasn't happening. Why don't people make their own blankets today? It's cheaper and easier. And that's I guess the best answer I can give you for Native Americans during this time period. When I was using beaver hides, animal, buffalo, those rabbit hides I talked about, if I were to do that, I'd have to kill the animal first. I could kill that animal, skin it, and give that skin away and get a big blanket, that's a nice wool blanket. 

Or if I wanted to make my own blanket, I have to take that skinned hide now, scrape all the flesh off of it, all the fat off of it, dry it, use brains to tan it, smoke it so that it stays pliable and make something out of it. If it's a small hide, I'm going to have to stitch it together. If it's a rabbit, I'm weaving it. That's very labor intensive. And what I end up with is this animal hide. I could take those same animal hides without all that extra work, turn it in for a wool blanket. And that wool blanket, not only is it a nice blanket, it comes in colors that I can't produce at home, in bright reds and wonderful colors. Not only is it bright colors, but something we know about wool is that even when it's wet, it holds a lot of insulative value, it's still warm and it dries fairly quick. I don't know if any of you have ever had a wet fur or wet leather item. It takes a long time to dry and it's not very warm. 

Basically, with a lot of these things, these are goods that are really good. They make my life easier and I want them for that. Brass kettles, compared to a clay pot or a birch bark vessel, it's a lot more durable. I can cook right over the fire without having to tend it and watch it, in case the water boils down. I can do a lot with that kettle. It's very lightweight. Iron knives and iron axes versus stone ones. I don't have to explain the difference between those. Basically, all of these goods are just making life easier, like anything that we buy today. Why do we have cell phones all of a sudden? 

And people go from a simple cell phone with a big bag that sits on your truck, to something small that you can hold, to one that all of a sudden has picture taking ability, to one that has Internet access. It makes our life quicker. It makes our life easier. And it's just a wonderful thing. I don't have a cell phone, so I guess I can't talk. That's why these goods were coming in. Basically, better goods that make my life easier. And for me to obtain them, if I have to do something that I've been doing, and maybe focus on it more to get the beaver hide. Great, what's the beaver going to be for me anyway? The hide of it especially. 

- The special properties of the beaver felt, the beaver fur for felting, they knew about that in Europe. 

- That industry was extremely well developed by the time any of this came along. Varying grades of felt for different types of hats depending on what you want. The beaver fur felt for a number of reasons was a superior quality. It has little microscopic barbs on it that hold it together tighter, so we have a harder, better, firmer, longer-lasting. It's got natural water repellency to it. Beaver fur was awesome. You could use other furs. You could use wool. And wool was used at the time period. 

Lambs wool, llama wool was used by the French for a short while during the war of Spanish Succession. I'm trying to think of other things, muskrat, hare or rabbits. All these things were used, but of course, your highest quality is going to be your beaver. Of course, beaver was even mixed with some of those other ones to make as the French called it demi-beaver, or half-beaver hats, or part beaver hats. So you see a whole range. And, of course, like the fashion industry today, you can go out and buy a really couture dress made by Vera Wang, and it would cost you more than I have. And I have this fancy dress, but I could probably go down to WalMart and buy a knock-off for a lot less. It's not as well made. It's not as well constructed. There's not as nice a fabric. 

It doesn't have the designer name on it, or whatever else. This is the fashion industry. I could go and buy that fancy, fancy hat of full beaver, or I could buy something cheaper that's not going to last me as long, but it looks about as good, as long as people don't really know what they're looking at. And that's what the common Joe is going to wear. 

- Are there records or estimates of the number of animals that are harvested either totally or annually? 

- There are. I can't spout numbers off the top of my head. I want to think that if I remember correctly from when I worked at Grand Portage, we generally said that 1793, I think was one of the best years, and they had somewhere around 186,000 beaver furs. And that was beaver alone, not the other furs that came into Grand Portage. Of course, that is just Grand Portage. 

That's just North America. And it's just the North West Company out of the whole world's enterprise. I believe that was something like 60-70% of the world's beaver, however. Don't quote me on some of these numbers. It's been awhile since I've been looked at the facts on the sheet. But I remember it was something like 186,000 beaver that year, not counting the others. And that was the majority of the world's beaver. However, there were a lot of other companies involved. Hudson's Bay Company, for example. I think they had about a fifth or a sixth of the world's beaver, or excuse me, of what the North West Company had as far numbers that year. 

So we're looking at a lot of animals. A lot of animals. I don't know where we are on time. I can keep on answering questions for a while, but we might have to officially quit. 

- There was a decline in beaver, but didn't you also have a decline in fashion? 

- Actually, the decline in fashion probably had more of an impact eventually than the decline of beaver. And not even the just the decline of fashion, but the decline of other resources. There's been studies done. Everyone always says the fur trade ended in 1840, because at that point, the silk hat becomes more fashionable, which is true that eventually the silk hat becomes more fashionable, and the demand for silk is there where it wasn't for the beaver fur. However, there was also another thing coinciding with that. 

Cheap nutria, and other animals from like South America were coming in and becoming much easier to obtain at a cheaper price. So why keep on doing the fur trade in North America when we can get cheap alternatives elsewhere. So there was actually a lot of factors. But 1840 is generally the cutoff of what scholars say the fur trade was. And it's fashion and other things, supply and demand, economic market forces. 
(inaudible)

 Well, thank you very much. 
(applause)